


Angst Contemplation

by Broba



Category: Doctor Who, Homestuck
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-21
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:38:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broba/pseuds/Broba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ahhh-h-h-h this is the one, this is the one. I simply will not resist a kinkmeme prompt based on British TV, and of course every Britisher for the last sixty or so years has grown up with Doctor Who- no exceptions. It's certainly more then just a show to me, The Doctor formed the basis of my moral upbringing in a very real and profound way, and so I was desperate to get this one "right."</p>
<p>Incidentally, the only reason it's called Angst Contemplation is because the kinkmeme prompt called for "angst, contemplation..." I'm always doing that.</p>
<p>Sit back and enjoy, I won't put spoilers here. Out of everything I've done, this is one where I'm prepared to just say "enjoy."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

This was a Tuesday, which are always problematic, on the newly-minted world named Earthish. The planet was ancient, her rocks had formed millions of years ago, evolutionary cycles had waxed and waned, producing endless species in endless variations leading up to this particular Tuesday and yet, all at the same time, none of this had existed a few days ago. All of that history, all of those billions upon billions of years, had been laid down in one fell swoop as a diligent garner puts down rolls of turf on a newly planted lawn.  
  
Along the end of an unremarkable street in an average city on a continent of Earthish a sound developed, echoing and reverberating from the high whitewashed walls that hemmed the alleyway in. Papers and trash rustled in a sudden breeze, and the morning silence was broken by the noise which had never before been heard in a way that mere humans could process. The wheezing and groaning of the universe itself breathing, as an unobtrusive blue box faded into existence. All at once, the box had always been there, as anyone passing by would tell themselves. Of course it had, how could things be otherwise? Blue wooden boxes don't appear out of nowhere.  
  
The children were finishing a meal at their favourite fast-food outlet, MacDonAldson's. It wasn't quite right, the colours were off and the food was just ever-so-slghtly wrong, but it was a close enough approximation to what they remembered. The food was good and the breeze was blowing and the  sun was shining, and if the quality of the light was perhaps just a touch more yellow then they remembered from before, well why did that matter really? It was close enough.  
  
Rose got up, wiping at her lips with a paper napkin, "I'm going to wash my hands, I'll be right back."  
  
As she pushed into the ladies' lavatory she heard an odd buzzing whirring sound, and when she rounded the corner of the rank of toilet stalls she was confronted with a man on his hands and knees doing something under a sink. A greenish glow came from under there, and he was muttering something under his breath. She went to a sink as far away from him as possible, the man must have been some kind of plumber- though she found it hard to imagine a plumber wearing tweed to work- and although she accepted the need for plumbers and plumbing services in general she still found it vaguely distasteful to find a male here in the Ladies.  
  
At the sound of running water he sat up suddenly on his knees, knocking his head awkwardly on the sink as he came up.  
  
"Ow!"  
"Oh I'm sorry, did I distract you?"  
"Liar,"  
"Excuse me?"  
"You're not sorry at all," he pulled himself to his feet, it was like watching a scarecrow assemble itself- poorly, "you're quietly satisfied that I bumped my head."  
  
He looked so serious, at first Rose didn't know what to say at all and felt absolutely dumbstruck, but then he cracked a wide grin and held out a hand.  
  
"Hello! I'm the Doctor."  
"Uhm, Rose," she shook the offered hand warily.  
"Rose," he looked at her seriously for a moment. He face could adopt a sudden and very disconcerting mask of absolute gravity in an instant, she noticed, "that's a lovely name."  
"Thankyou Doctor... ummm?" she raised an eyebrow expectantly, but the man had already darted off, he was now examining the door jamb of a stall, he had the tool he was using before out and was running the glowing green tip up and down the door as if measuring something. The tool was the source of the buzzing.  
"Who doesn't matter. You should be asking why- why would a strange man be doing strange things right here and now, aren't you," he turned, "a little curious?"  
  
Rose clenched her fists at her sides, she didn't like the self-assured way this man, this Doctor, spoke, as though he was already several paragraphs ahead in the conversation and waiting patiently for her to read ahead. She was getting the wary, clenched feeling in her stomach again, the same feeling she thought she had left behind her, the one that said danger! Something isn't right! But she had learned to conquer that feeling, just as she had learned to conquer danger. Just as she had learned she was in no way defenceless.  
  
"Alright then," she replied, "I am curious. What are you doing here? What is that green buzzy thing?"  
"This?" He held up his sonic screwdriver, "well, I suppose, it is a green buzzy thing, really. And as for what I'm doing, I'm trying to work out why and entire world, it's people and history is here and now where it's always been, when yesterday or the day before it wasn't and never had been."  
  
He was staring at her again. Her throat clenched. He knows! No one is supposed to know! They are supposed to just be happy and that's the end of it!  
  
"You don't know what you're talking about."  
"Don't I? Well then, Rose, it looks like I'm very lucky indeed that you're here to explain it to me then."  
  
She turned back to the sink and began scrubbing her hands under a flow of water furiously. She refused to answer that. He pointed the screwdriver and did something- and the water stopped. No matter how she pounded the faucet nothing happened.  
  
"How did you do that?"  
"It's not important, but lots of other things are very important. There used to be a world here, a world I had grown very fond of and liked a great deal, and now there's this one instead and I'd say it's very important to find out why."  
"Shut up!" She was almost screaming, her fists beat at her sides, "just shut up and leave it! Everything's fine now, it's all back to how it's meant to be!"  
"You've been telling yourself that a lot haven't you Rose," he said softly, and she could see to her horror some measure of understanding in his eyes, as though anyone could understand what it meant to just start everything over and act like nothing had happened. "But I don't think this is right at all. It's a very clever thing that someone has done here, this world is very nearly right, isn't it? I'm no expert really, but even I can see that it's very close to Earth. But it's not Earth, is it? And you know something about what happened don't you, Rose?"  
She was staring at him in naked horror, now. "Where did you come from?"  
"Somewhere far away from here."  
"No one is supposed to know what happened. There's nothing left from back then."  
"Almost nothing. I've been gone for quite some time."  
  
That much was true. The TARDIS barely had the energy to escape from the collapse that consumed the universe, a cascade reaction that had affected every point in space and time simultaneously. It had withdrawn to the only safe haven it cold find, a minuscule pocket-universe, a forgotten offshoot existing in a bubble of time safely apart from the rest, and there the TARDIS had waited until suddenly, miraculously, everything returned all at once. The entire universe collapsing and expanding again almost exactly as it had been. Almost, but not quite.  
  
"I don't think I want to talk to you any more," said Rose quietly.  
"Maybe later then."  
"I don't have time for this," she pushed past him and left, to find the others. Even before she had gone through the door the usual smile she always wore was safely back in place.  
"Time," said the Doctor, watching her go, "that's the one thing I do have."


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor's statement turned out to be true. The children left the restaurant, happily joking among themselves and not one of them showing less then a full grin, Rose pushed from her mind all thoughts of the funny looking man who claimed to be a doctor. Probably, she thought, just a sad, homeless mental case. She was right about most of this.  
  
Jade said her goodbyes to the others as she reached her house, a large, squarish building set apart from the others on her leafy avenue by way of a long, winding driveway. It was not quite like the house it was modelled on, but it was a close approximation and she had become very used to living within walking distance of the others. By unspoken agreement, they were all living near each other now.  
  
She let herself in and closed the door, but the moment she did her doorbell rang. That threw her for a moment- the drive way was a good minute, minute and a half walk, and she had not been followed. There was no other way to approach the house, no one could be at the door without having wandered up the driveway directly behind her, and so who...?  
  
She opened her door suspiciously, and looked up into the face of a wildly grinning man in a bow-tie who extended a hand immediately and announced; "Hello! I'm the Doctor."  
  
Jade was perplexed, but polite and so she shook his hand while taking a surreptitious look around him. It was as if he had appeared out of nowhere at her door. Before she could say anything he strode directly into her house and began examining things. The hallway was a riot of memorabilia, there was an entire stuffed bear, several suits of armour, and antiquated flintlock rifles hung from a wall display. He took out his sonic screwdriver and began examining each in turn, moving the glowing tip over every antique and then examining the tool for results. Jade flushed angrily.  
  
"Excuse me, but what do you think you're doing?" She exclaimed.  
"Clever things. Very clever things indeed that are very complicated, also clever. And it's quite rude of you not to introduce yourself you know, that's what the whole shaking hands business is all about. Churchill told me that you know."  
"My name is Jade Harley and you are in my house, so you," she tried to draw herself up angrily, the way she imagined Rose would have, "ought to leave!"  
The Doctor swivelled sharply to regard her with a suddenly piercing stare. "People are always telling me what I ought to be doing, I'm amazed how obvious the things I ought to be doing are to everyone else, I just don't see it myself. I don't suppose a cup of tea might be possible?"  
"No! And- hey don't touch that! It's very rare!"  
"What this? Oh yes I suppose," the Doctor examined a priceless porcelain vase, and blew on it in such a way across the neck that it made an 'Ooom' sound. "But of course, it's only been very old and very rare for a short while, hasn't it?"  
  
He tossed the vase casually and Jade scrambled to catch it.  
  
"That doesn't make sense at all! And I'm warning you to get out of my house!"  
"You said "my" house," The Doctor was suddenly directly in front of her and Jade involuntarily took a step back.  
"That's... that's right!"  
"That's because you're all alone here, aren't you? It really is just "your" house. Don't people your age usually live with their parents?"  
"Well, I don't!"  
"No one to cook you a meal? No one to complain that you're not working hard enough in school? No one to do all the grown-up things that are so-o-o-o boring, but they still need to be done?"  
"I don't need anyone to look after me!" Jade pouted furiously, her hands were shaking and she set down the vase.  
"Oh Jade," he replied very softly, thrusting his hands in his pockets and wandering around the museum pieces she surrounded herself with. "Everyone needs someone to look after them sometimes, take it from someone who knows."  
"You don't know what you're talking about!"  
  
He span on his heel and confronted her, fixing her with an angry glare.  
  
"There isn't a single thing in this house that's younger then you are. There are cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling, and that means even the spiders have grown old and died because they never leave their webs behind. You have newspapers delivered-" he pointed out the small pile of mail beside the door, "but no one ever bothers reading them. And I liked what you did with your bookshelves," he pointed one out. Jade stared blankly until he continued, "nothing on a high shelf. You're all alone here in this big old house full of big old things, aren't you?"  
"Who are you?" She breathed, her eyes shining. The way he was so precise and so very present in the moment that he was aware of everything happening around him reminded her oddly of how she had always imagined her grandfather in his prime. "Who are you really?"  
"Jade," he touched the tips of his index fingers to his lips for a moment as he thought about it. He crouched down on one skinny knee in front of her to look directly into her eyes. "You can bend down and touch the ground, and know just how heavy and old the world is. When you stare at suns rolling through the air like fireflies. That's who I am." He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a slightly grubby looking handkerchief with a flourish. "I need to know what happened Jade. All those people and their histories, they were a part of me and I want to know what happened to them."  
"It doesn't matter," she shuddered and bit her lip, "it all got fixed."  
"Pretending something didn't happen will make it go away, Jade. But it'll cost you something in return that you'll have to let go of, and you can't have it back if you do."  
  
He gently reached out and touched the stream of tears down each of her cheeks one at a time with the handkerchief.  
  
"Doctor, we-"  
  
She was interrupted by the harsh jangling of the phone. She jumped, and almost sprinted for it, yanking the old fashioned receiver up.  
  
"Y-yes? Oh hi-" She suddenly stopped dead, holding the receiver as if it might explode against her head, staring at the Doctor, "r-really?"  
"Jade? Who is it?" He asked, tilting his head in concern.  
"I understand, alright then. Yes, yes I won't forget."  
  
She put the phone down firmly and took a deep breath, then strode to the door and pulled it open fiercely.  
  
"Jade? Where are you going?"  
"I can't talk, I'm s- I'm sorry."  
  
She didn't bother closing the door behind her, she just sped away down the gravel path, trying very hard to look like she wasn't running. She didn't even register the odd blue boxy shape she caught out of the corner of her eye, resting against the wall of her house. The Doctor watched her go and exhaled deeply in frustration. This was not getting any easier, but the clues were slowly falling into place, and he could afford to be patient.  
  
\---  
  
Later in that evening Dave dragged two full bags of shopping up to his apartment. He liked to live up high, where the noise of the city bustling beneath was reduced to a quiet background hum. He struggled up to his door and fumbled in his pocket for his key. He was obliged to press a shopping bag inbetween his chest and the door surface to hold it while he fumbled with the lock, and he was taken utterly by surprise when the door opened of it's own accord and he practically fell inside.  
  
"Hello!" Announced the Doctor, as he politely shut the door behind Dave and helped him to pick up his things, "I'm the Doctor! I hope you don't mind, I let myself in."  
  
Dave shoved him away and brushed at his clothing, adjusting his shades and trying to regain his cool. Behind the shades his eyes flicked to the tall tubular umbrella holder by the door, then the cupboard in the lounge. The two nearest hiding places of blades.  
  
"Who the hell are you, man? What are you doing in my fuckin' place!"  
"I told you, I'm the Doctor." The man looked vaguely hurt that Dave had forgotten already. He busied  himself putting away items of shopping in random places that made no sense. He exclaimed in pleasure as he found a pair of Dave's spare shades and tried them on.  
"Oh I like these! I'm going to wear shades now, shades are cool."  
"Well, f'yuh of course. Now are you going to- oh my fuckin, no WAY!"  
  
Dave had wandered past the open door to his bedroom and seen what the Doctor had left in there. Directly in the middle of the room a large blue wooden box larger then a phone booth stood, looking for all the world like an innocuous conversation piece. Dave was more enraged then afraid by this point, and he had gone through enough to know when the time had come to act rather then ask. He glared balefully at the Doctor- and vanished.  
  
The Doctor in turn activated his sonic screwdriver and wandered around the room aimlessly in circles for a moment, before wandering to the kitchen. He filled the nearest receptacle- a saucepan- with water and casually wandered over to the front door. He consulted his sonic screwdriver again, counting down softly under his breath, before lifting up the saucepan and slowly tipping out a stream of water onto the floor.  
  
Dave flashed into existence three minutes into the future to grab his sword and skewer a fool, when he was suddenly drenched with freezing cold water. The Doctor was just smirking at him. All Dave could manage was, "How?"  
  
The Doctor just wandered off back towards the kitchen, sitting himself in a wooden chair and leaning his chin on his hands, watching Dave through the doorway. Dave approached warily, the man seemed not to present any threat that Dave could identify exactly, while at the same time the hairs on the back of Dave's neck were flaring up the way they would when he just knew that Bro was about to do something. He could not help but glance at a poster plastered to the kitchen wall, there was one like it, at least one, in every room.  
  
"You like him, don't you," the Doctor remarked, pointing at the poster, which showed a slim white figure on stage laying down the strictest and most disciplined beats. Above the figure picked out in glowing neon letters the word B-RO.  
"He's pretty cool."  
  
Dave had done his best to recreate him, but close was not nearly good enough. He couldn't bear the thought of ever being in the same room as the man. He was the most popular rapper on the West coast though. Dave could at least give him that much.  
  
"You don't have posters of anyone else, why just him?"  
"I just like him, that's all."  
"What if I could get you back stage at the next concert?"  
"I wouldn't go."  
"No, no it wouldn't be right. Close maybe, almost perfect, but not right."  
  
Dave looked at him silently.  
  
"Not the same," said the Doctor in a whisper.  
"No."  
"I've been speaking to your friends, Dave Strider. I thought maybe you and I might understand each other better then they did."  
"Who are you."  
  
His voice was flat, not really questioning.  
  
"I know what it means to lose someone. Someone you might hate a little, but someone you need anyway."  
"Who are you, Doctor."  
"I had to hold a man in my arms and watch him die just because he was too stubborn to live. Just because he thought it would be ironic that dying would hurt me so badly."  
"Who are you."  
"You think he's stubborn? I'm talking about a real Master. I understand what it feels like to lose when you're winning, Dave. I just want to know what you did, you and your friends."  
"Who are you!"  
"I need to know, Dave. I'm not your enemy, I promise you that. I want to help you, and your friends too, but they aren't talking to me."  
"Leave me alone! Leave us all alone and just, just go away fuckin' forget it! Look out the window Doctor, and appreciate the fuck out of the sunset, because you got us to thank for it! It's all perfect so stop trying to... ruin everything!"  
  
It was too much for Dave. He vanished. The Doctor whipped out his screwdriver but he was gone, and he wasn't coming back any time soon. The Doctor sighed and got up to leave, patting the door jamb of the TARDIS as he entered, "Come on old girl, one more."  
  
\---  
  
Dave sat on the wall outside Jade's house, hours earlier, and dialled her on his cell. She was interrupted by the harsh jangling of the phone. She jumped, and almost sprinted for it, yanking the old fashioned receiver up.  
  
"Y-yes? Oh hi-"  
"It's me. Don't say my name, just shut up and listen Harley. There's a funny man in there with you isn't there? You have to just walk right out, right now."  
She suddenly stopped dead, holding the receiver as if it might explode against her head, staring at the Doctor, "r-really?"  
"Jade? Who is it?" He asked, tilting his head in concern.  
"Don't talk to him, okay? He won't do anything to you. Don't let him it's me talking to you, right? Whatever you do, don't tell him it's me. Just get out of there."  
"I understand, alright then. Yes, yes I won't forget."


	3. Chapter 3

John woke up and stretched, he felt more refreshed then he had in longer then he could remember. He padded to his door in his pyjamas and paused. Something was different, he slipped on his glasses and tried to concentrate. He walked out onto the landing outside his bedroom and stretched, yawning and scratching at his scalp. He heard something, and frowned. He was alone in the house, or, he was supposed to be. John stepped down the stairs with the practised, silent sneak of a prankster. He could hear it now, the unmistakable hiss and sizzle of frying bacon. Of breakfast being prepared lovingly and with care.

With a raucous yell of delight he pounded down the corridor and skidded into the kitchen, the grin splayed across his face open and honest. He pulled up to a halt as though he had hit a wall, the word he had been about to say died unspoken in his throat, he bit down on his lip.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor," said the man, as he stirred at a frying pan with the wrong end of a spatula. He picked up an egg and cracked it over the bacon, before smiling over at John. "I'm sorry, I let myself in. And then I thought to myself, how's the best way to start off the day? Eggs and bacon of course. There's a lot of strange and wonderful things out in the universe, and you can find a surprising amount of them in a hot frying pan." He winked and stirred at the pan, reaching out for a plate.

"Who are you," said John blankly. He suddenly felt very tired indeed.  
"I told you, I'm the Doctor. Sit, sit, I think I have the hang of this now."  
"How did you get in here," he asked, staring into his own palms.

The Doctor placed a plate of bacon before him and ruffled his hair absently before sitting down himself. He had a plate of his own, and he casually spooned a little sugar onto his bacon, before adding pepper. They started to eat in silence, the Doctor smiled at John, he just ate quietly and refused to look up.

John finally finished his breakfast, to find the Doctor watching him patiently, indeed with infinite patience. John could imagine himself playing his piano, and the Doctor just observing him improving, offering calm guidance.

"Why did you come?" Said John, at last.  
"Aren't you going to ask who I am a bit more? It always seems to come first."

John shook his head.

"Well that's good, no one ever likes the answer." The Doctor placed his hands flat on the table and regarded John coolly. "I came here to find out what had happened. Something terrible took place, and the entire universe convulsed and died only to re-emerge moments later in almost exactly the same state it had been in before."  
"How did you know that?"  
"I saw it happen, I got to watch history be reborn in an instant. I'd like to know who thinks they have the right to erase all of time and space, everything that ever was or ever will be."  
"We only wanted," John's throat caught, he started again. "We only wanted to put everything right again, to make it how it used to be."  
"How it used to be? You think this here is just like it was, really?"  
"It's good enough!" John shouted, bringing a fist down on the table, the Doctor looked surprised by that, to hear the outburst from such a small and peaceful looking boy. "Why do you even care? Why can't you just enjoy it like everyone else?"  
"When I was a boy," said the Doctor, "not much older then you, I thought that my life was so small and limited it didn't matter at all. As soon as I could, I ran away. I never stopped running from the past, but that doesn't mean for one moment I'd let that past go. I lost things you couldn't even imagine, and I did things in return I would give anything to be able to say I didn't do. But even if the past hurts, John, it's my past."  
"The world was destroyed! Everyone was dead, dead! What would you've done?"  
"I saw my people... die, John. There was a war, they didn't survive. And I caused most of it, in the end. But at least," he snarled, "I could say once upon a time, this is what we were. You and your friends took even that away from me."

John looked as though his face was carved in porcelain, he might cry or scream or do nothing at all, his emotions were unreadable.

"I didn't know. None of us did,"  
"And would it change things if you did? You told yourselves that the death of a world was worth ripping apart the entire universe and none of you stopped to think what that means?"  
"I- I don't- it wasn't like that!"  
"Then tell me what it was like!" The Doctor shouted, "human! Tell me what was going through your mind when you decided you had any right to decide the end of everything!"  
"Please..."  
"Don't! Don't ask me to forgive you! I can do a lot of things, I very nearly forgave myself, but I can't do it for you too."

The Doctor pulled himself together, clenching his hands in a tight pile of fingers. He hadn't meant to go so far, he looked at himself and saw a bitter old man yelling at a terrified boy.

"Why did you come here," John breathed.  
"Because," the Doctor adjusted his bow-tie and looked down, "I want to know what you did. What exactly you did." He looked up and regarded John.  
"Why? You can't just make it better."  
"I thought I told you," he grinned, "I'm the Doctor. I can make everything better."

 

\---

 

The children gathered in a park in the middle of the city at the appointed time the next day. They hadn't wanted to come, and they wouldn't have come if the Doctor had asked them to alone, but John told them, and they came for his sake. The park was deserted, the afternoon had not quite progressed to the time when people would pour out of offices and shops at the end of the working day and make their way through on the way home.

"So Egbert," began Dave, "we turned up. What now?"  
"I don't really know, this is just where he said to be."  
"I'm not sure about this," said Rose, she had been unusually quiet even for her, "something about that Doctor makes me highly uncomfortable."  
"No fuckin' kidding," Rejoindered Dave, "he's a freak! I don't know how, but he knows shit. We should," he made a waving motion.  
"What?" Said Jade, "kill him? This isn't the game any more Dave, and he's not an imp."  
"I didn't mean like that,"  
"Well what do you suggest? I mean, he knows things that he shouldn't be able to know- we have to at least find out what he is really, right?"  
"Well okay," Dave looked unhappy about it, "but if anything happens, I'm going crazyhouse all over his ass."

There was a sudden breeze, they all looked at John who shrugged and held up his hands, it wasn't him. A wheezing, groaning, grinding surrounded them coming from no particular source, as the TARDIS materialised nearby them. They all stared. When the Doctor got out, they  practically goggled.

"How's that for crazy?" Asked John.  
"Uh," said Dave.

 

The Doctor gathered them and took them into the TARDIS, and there was the initial moment of shock and dislocation as it became clear that, yes, it was bigger on the inside then the outside. Given that the children had become accustomed in their travels to time-warping trolls, transportalisers and all manner of such shenanigans they took it better then most, but they couldn't be prepared for what the Doctor had in mind when he explained his plan.

"Will it work?" Rose was the first to ask, always practical.  
"There's a good chance," answered the Doctor. "All I can tell you is... something will happen."  
"What will happen to us, after?" Jade glanced around at the other worriedly.  
"I'll make sure you are all together, wherever we end up, I promise you that."  
"And all the people who died?" Dave glared at him with open mistrust, the Knight of Time staring down the Time Lord.  
"Dave," said the Doctor softly, "I won't make you try this, you know that."

They all looked at John, who looked smaller and younger then anyone.

\---

 

Earlier.

The way the Doctor had explained it seemed simple, but he had taken over an hour going through the plan with them, over and over, until they all understood fully. The TARDIS would take them back to the moments when the new universe had first been forming from the matrix of energies released by the Scratch. It had been at that point Dave had interrupted angrily.

"I already tried going back, I can't go past the Scratch, I can't even touch it, nothing can."  
"When you initiated the Scratch it became a fixed point in time," explained the Doctor, "it has to have happened and always will- it's no longer negotiable. But in the beginning when this universe formed, the time is still malleable, events can be re-written."  
"How can you tell that?"  
"I'll teach you one day, if you like," the Doctor grinned and winked at Dave, who flushed angrily.

The Doctor explained to them that the universe had been written from their hopes and memories and thoughts, but they could only ever manage a subjective approximation that way. He could use the TARDIS to influence the energy matrix of the Scratch as it spread outwards, with their help. Dave would have to use his temporal powers to hold the newborn universe in a state of temporal grace, freezing the timeline to receive the influence the TARDIS would exert. Jade would contract the newly forming young Universe itself, holding it into a manageable set of dimensions according to the Doctor's instructions. She could do it while Dave held it in that young, contracted state before it bloated and expanded beyond even her powers to manage.

As for Rose, she would have the most mentally challenging role. They could only bring memories and fragments to their new universe, but the TARDIS had communed with the very vortex of time itself, and a fragment of that vortex formed its' core. All of history in miniature swirled in the heart of the TARDIS, for that was how it moved- not by breaching time, but by communing with it. Rose would use her power to establish a mental link with the living core of the TARDIS and allow it to release the temporal vortex into the blank matrix of energy in the new universe, rewriting it once more exactly as it had been, to the detail.

"Then," said John, "you don't really need me for anything,"  
"Can I talk to you alone for a moment, John?"

 

\---

  
"John," said the Doctor softly, "I don't have the right to ask you all to take this risk, whatever I might believe personally. Look at them John. They won't do it for me, they won't. They'll do it for you though, if you ask them. You can keep them together."  
"So you do need me, Doctor," John said softly, "I'm just like a tool to you?"  
"I'm sorry John, I really am. But I can't do this all alone."  
"You said you can make everything better. You said you wouldn't force anyone."  
"Rule number one," he said, with some kind of a sorrow in his eyes, "the Doctor lies."

  


\---

  
Later.

John held out his hands to them, "Please," he said, "I know it's going to be hard, but we, we have to do this! We can't just leave things how they were, it was killing us!"  
Rose looked down, then up, "Alright John."  
"I'm with you John," said Jade.  
Dave stared at him impassively from behind his shades, unreadable, eventually he just gave a little shrug. "Hell, when Bro finds out he lost out on the crazy awesome life I gave him, it'll be worth it to see the look on his dumbass face. Let's do this thing."

The TARDIS rolled and roared, back through time, back to where it had begun. The pathways of time merged and converged until they approached the beginning. Rose was stood at the console, she was staring at the rise and fall of the time-rotor which groaned and pulsated dangerously as the TARDIS exerted itself to the limits. Her hands occasionally moved, stroking and caressing the console, touching on the collection of strange and anachronistic devices that allegedly controlled the mighty machine, but she was not there really. Her mind was somewhere else entirely.

Jade sat cross-legged on the floor with her eyes scrunched tightly shut, beads of sweat were picking out along her brow as she concentrated hard, "It's happening," she said suddenly, "I can feel it! The whole universe, no bigger then an egg!"

As for Dave, He stood at the TARDIS doors. Occasionally he would jog, or wrap his arms around himself slapping his sides, psyching himself up. The Doctor looked up from the control console.

"We're here, this is as close to the scratch as we can go. Dave, are you ready?"  
Dave looked over his shoulder, "Lucky there's a Doctor all up in this house. Because I am about to lay down the illest motherfuckin' shit you ever saw."

The Doctor clapped a hand to John's shoulder and nodded. John took a deep breath and twisted a control knob on the console, and the doors flew open to reveal a stunning vista, ribbons of energy extended in all directions, a universe writhed and screamed around them in the pangs of birth.

"Dave!" John shouted.  
"On it, dude."

Dave turned to stare into the abyss and removed his shades. The noiseless maelstrom of energy writhed, slowed- and stopped.

"Jade!"  
"Right John!"

Jade threw her head back and splayed her arms out at her sides, as with a sickening lurch the TARDIS expanded and unfolded, they all shared the very real sensation of being, suddenly galactic beings whose reach was measured in light years- or perhaps it was only the universe that shrank to an angry, frozen globe of energy. It was around them and permeating them yet at the same time, they all knew that the glowing blue orb Jade held hovering between her hands was in a very real sense everything.

"Rose!"  
"Yes John! I can feel it! I can feel it all in my head, it's everything!"

Rose turned and looked out of the doors into the face of everything. One hand still brushed lightly over the TARDIS console, and the time rotor shuddered. She opened her eyes and her mouth, what flowed out of her was inscrutable and indescribable, and none of them would ever be able to describe what they had seen and experienced. Only the Doctor had ever seen the vortex of time before, and this was only a fragment, a miniature, yet it was nearly enough rip the sanity from them. The nascent universe seemed to scream, as a timeline imposed itself and dominated, determining the course of events from the beginning to the end of everything. All of it was there, the fall of every leaf, the wind through every bough, the precise shape of every cloud.

"All that ever was," breathed the Doctor, "and all there will ever be. What do you think?" He looked down at John and winked.  
John beamed up at him and crowed, "Geronimo!"

 

\---

  
They all met again, in that same park. They'd had enough time to check, and indeed their families were exactly where they had left them. A faithful childhood pet, a passive-aggressive mother, a distant and uncaring brother, a father who just wanted to do all he could for his son. It was as it had been, and the Doctor would take them all to their respective homes around the globe. There was time enough for parting though, they just enjoyed the sunshine- the proper sunshine- on that magical afternoon and had one last meal together. The children sat on a blanket the Doctor had produced. Jade suspected that it was actually a priceless rug from ancient Persia but she thought it would be rude to be picky about it, and they were putting it to the use it was made for after all.

The Doctor had insisted on introducing them to jammy dodgers and had passed around a paper bag of jelly babies which were delicious. In turn, they had insisted he try oreos, which he announced were acceptable if odd, but that didn't stop him having ten of them.

"Where are you going to go, Doctor?" Rose was the first one to ask it. John just looked confused.  
"What do you mean? He's staying, he's one of us now!"

Rose looked pointedly at the Doctor and he sighed. "She's right. I can't stay, there’s still a lot I have to do."  
"Will you ever swing by again?" Dave looked off into the distance vaguely, pretending not to particularly care what the answer was.  
"Oh I imagine I'll be around from time to time, when I'm needed."  
"Doctor-r-r-r," John wheedled, "we do need you! I mean, we've been given a second chance but what if someone starts playing Sburb again?" The others looked at him with expressions ranging from shock to horror, "well come on, it could happen! Maybe it's got to happen, sooner or later. And what are we going to do then? We do need you, Doctor!"

For his part, the Doctor stood up and stretched, before adjusting his bow-tie. "Look over there, what do you see?"  
"A city," said John flatly.  
"I see the combined potential of millions of lives, all swirling around and bouncing off each other. Who knows what's coming? Maybe anything, and I can't tell you there is going to be no pain to come in the future. Maybe things will just happen again the way they did before, that's for you all to decide now. How many people out there do you think need a helping hand just as badly right now? You'll manage, I'm sure. You're strong together."  
"Dude's got better places to be," said Dave flatly, "can't blame the man for havin' things to do."  
"You really could stay, you know," Jade said quietly, and the Doctor felt both hearts break a little.  
"John is right about one thing," said Rose, after nibbling on a sandwich. "Sburb might come back now. What's the point of it all, if in the end the same mistakes happen all over? Everyone will just die all over again."

The Doctor turned to his TARDIS and opened the door, thinking about that for a moment before turning back to face them all.

"Maybe. There are great evils out in the universe, and danger. Threats are coming sooner or later, whatever you do. But don't ever think it isn't worth it, even if all you're doing is putting off the inevitable for one more day. Because Rose, Dave, Jade and John- maybe today is the one day we bought ourselves. But today, just for once, no one has to die." He grinned broadly and lifted an arm, they all waved to him back, "today, everyone lives!"

The Doctor went into his TARDIS then, and the door closed. The children drew closer together as the wind lifted and the wheezing, groaning, noise announced that he had left them, and the TARDIS was no longer there, as if it had never been there.


End file.
